Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2665 actions· ✨ 90 recent

On 11 March 2026 USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer initiated parallel Section 301 investigations into the acts, policies, and practices of 16 economies — China, the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan, and India — relating to structural excess capacity and overproduction in manufacturing sectors. The Federal Register notice (FR doc 2026-05214; dockets USTR-2026-0067 and USTR-2026-0068) was published on 17 March 2026. Covered sectors include aluminum, automobiles, batteries, cement, chemicals, electronics, energy goods, glass, machine tools, machinery, paper, plastics, processed food and beverages, robotics, satellites, semiconductors, ships, solar modules, steel, and transportation equipment. Written comments were due by 15 April 2026; USTR held the public hearing beginning 5 May 2026. This is the most sweeping multi-economy Section 301 initiative since the 2018 China investigation and is structurally distinct from the China-only 2024-05-14 §301 tariff hikes and the 2025-07-15 Brazil §301 investigation.

On 23 February 2026 the Korea Trade Commission (KTC) at its 461st plenary meeting adopted a final affirmative anti-dumping determination against hot-rolled carbon and alloy steel (HRC) imports from China and Japan, recommending definitive five-year duties of 28.16–33.10% on Chinese-origin HRC and 31.58–33.57% on Japanese-origin HRC to the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF) for implementation via customs notification. The investigation was initiated in March 2024 on petition by Hyundai Steel, following December 2023 injury allegations, with provisional duties imposed in September 2025. KTC simultaneously recommended acceptance of price-undertaking commitments from three Japanese companies (including JFE Steel and Nippon Steel) and six Chinese companies (including Baosteel), allowing those exporters to avoid the definitive duties by maintaining minimum import-price levels; remaining non-participating exporters face the full duty rates under a five-year WTO ADA Article 11 sunset ending 2031.

On 13 November 2025, the United States and the Republic of Korea released a Joint Fact Sheet reaffirming the July 2025 announcement of the Korea Strategic Trade and Investment Deal — the first standalone US-Korea trade-and-investment agreement since the 2012 KORUS FTA. USTR issued the implementing Federal Register notice (90 FR 55964, Notice 2025-21940) on 3 December 2025, effective 4 December 2025, with retroactive HTSUS application to 1 November 2025 for autos and auto parts and to 14 November 2025 for reciprocal-tariff goods, timber, lumber, derivatives, and certain aircraft and aircraft parts. On the US tariff side: (i) the country-specific IEEPA reciprocal tariff on Korean originating goods is set at the higher of the KORUS FTA / MFN rate or 15% (parallel to the Japan and EU framework deals); (ii) the Section 232 tariffs on autos, auto parts, timber, lumber and wood derivatives are reduced to 15% (no incremental duty when the pre-existing KORUS/MFN rate already meets or exceeds 15%); (iii) Korean exports of qualifying goods on the Potential Tariff Adjustments for Aligned Partners (PTAAP) list are exempt from reciprocal tariffs (covering generic pharmaceuticals and unavailable natural resources); (iv) Section 232 pharmaceuticals capped at 15%; semiconductors granted MFN-style "no less favourable" treatment in any future sectoral deal. On the investment side, Korea commits to a USD 350bn package: USD 150bn into US shipbuilding ("Approved Investments") plus USD 200bn into US strategic industries via a separate Strategic Investments MOU, with annual currency-funding cap of USD 20bn. Non-tariff commitments include streamlined US biotech approvals on the Korean side, US meat and cheese market access, fair treatment for US digital services, removal of Korea's 50,000-unit cap on US vehicles meeting FMVSS, and joint WTO support for the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions.

At the APEC Busan summit on 30 October 2025, Presidents Trump and Xi reached the "Economic and Trade Arrangement Between the United States and the People's Republic of China," subsequently implemented on the US side by the executive order "Modifying Reciprocal Tariff Rates Consistent with the Economic and Trade Arrangement" (issued 4 November 2025; effective 12:01 am EST on 10 November 2025; published in the Federal Register on 7 November 2025 as 90 FR 50729 / 2025-19826) and on the Chinese side by a series of MOFCOM and State Council Tariff Commission announcements (notably MOFCOM 2025 No. 90 of 8–9 November 2025). The arrangement is structurally parallel to the already-filed US-Japan, US-Korea and US-Taiwan framework deals but uniquely material because it freezes the highest-stakes bilateral tariff and export-control confrontation of the post-2024 reset. Core US commitments: (i) reciprocal-tariff "additional ad valorem rate of duty" on PRC-origin goods reduced from a prior 20% IEEPA-fentanyl + 10% IEEPA-reciprocal stack to a 10% rate (i.e., the prior 24% / 34% scheduled escalation is suspended), extended through 10 November 2026; (ii) US BIS suspends the so-called "affiliates rule" expanding entity-list controls to majority-owned subsidiaries of listed Chinese firms; (iii) USTR pauses Section 301 maritime / shipbuilding / logistics countermeasures against Chinese vessels for one year. Core PRC commitments: (i) MOFCOM suspends for one year (until 10 November 2026) the 9 October 2025 extraterritorial rare-earth export-control package — including controls on REE processing equipment, lithium-battery manufacturing equipment, and superhard materials; (ii) PRC suspends retaliatory tariffs on a broad swath of US agricultural products through 31 December 2026; (iii) commitment to purchase ≥25 million metric tonnes of US soybeans annually in 2026-2028 and to resume sorghum and log imports; (iv) suspension of MOFCOM antitrust and "unreliable-entity" probes against named US semiconductor and chip-equipment companies; (v) cooperation on fentanyl precursor enforcement. The arrangement does not repeal underlying authorities (IEEPA tariffs, MOFCOM export-control list, Entity List) — it is a calibrated mutual freeze with a one-year sunset and quarterly review checkpoints.

China's Ministry of Transport (Water Transport Bureau, document 交办水〔2025〕59号), acting under the PRC International Maritime Transport Regulations, issued a measure on 10 October 2025 imposing escalating special port service fees on U.S.-linked vessels calling at Chinese ports from 14 October 2025. Fees apply at the first Chinese port of call per voyage to (i) U.S.-owned, (ii) U.S.-operated, (iii) ≥25% U.S.-equity, (iv) U.S.-flagged, or (v) U.S.-built vessels, charged per net ton on a stepped schedule (¥400/NT from 14 Oct 2025, ¥640/NT from 17 Apr 2026, ¥880/NT from 17 Apr 2027, ¥1,120/NT from 17 Apr 2028) and capped at five voyages per vessel per year. The measure is the first MOT-issued trade-remedy instrument in the IPTM register and the direct, named-target mirror response to USTR's 17 April 2025 Section 301 maritime Notice of Action. Both regimes were mutually suspended for one year from 10 November 2025 through 9 November 2026 following the 30 October 2025 Trump-Xi Busan meeting.

The UK Trade Remedies Authority initiated antidumping investigation AD0071 on 6 June 2025 into hot-rolled steel plate (flat-rolled products of iron or non-alloy steel, 600mm+ width, hot-rolled, not clad/plated/coated, not in coils, 4.75mm+ thickness) originating in South Korea, following an application by UK producer Spartan UK Ltd. The TRA found South Korean imports grew from ~14,000 tonnes in 2021 to over 40,000 tonnes the following year. In April 2026 the TRA published its Statement of Essential Facts proposing duties of 7.04%-22.27% on narrow plates (600mm-2500mm width) — its preferred option — or 5.98%-24.28% if applied to the full scope, after an Economic Interest Test found full-scope duties would harm UK downstream sectors (renewable energy, shipbuilding, defence) reliant on wider-plate imports.

USTR concluded its Section 301 investigation (initiated 17 April 2024) into China's targeting of the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors for dominance and on 17 April 2025 issued a Notice of Action imposing tiered port-entry service fees on Chinese-owned, -operated, and Chinese-built vessels arriving at U.S. ports starting 14 October 2025 (USD 50/net ton escalating to USD 80/NT in Apr 2026, USD 110/NT in Apr 2027, and USD 140/NT in Apr 2028; capped at 5 charges per vessel per year). The action also proposed a 100% tariff on China-built or China-component ship-to-shore cranes and additional 20-100% tariffs on China-origin shipping containers, truck chassis, and chassis parts. The entire action was subsequently suspended for one year (10 Nov 2025 through 9 Nov 2026) by USTR Modification Notice (FR 2025-19873) at presidential direction following the 1 Nov 2025 Trump-Xi trade deal.

The Trade Act of 1974 (Pub. L. 93-618, 88 Stat. 1978), signed into law by President Ford on 3 January 1975 and codified principally at 19 U.S.C. §§ 2101–2497b, is the foundational US statute authorising the executive branch to respond to foreign unfair trade practices and to negotiate trade agreements. Title III (§§ 2411–2420), universally known as "Section 301," empowers the United States Trade Representative to investigate foreign acts, policies, or practices that violate trade agreements or are unjustifiable, unreasonable, or discriminatory and burden or restrict US commerce, and — upon an affirmative finding — to impose tariffs, import restrictions, denial of trade-agreement benefits, or other retaliatory measures. Section 301 is the legal basis for every major US unfair-trade-practice retaliation action filed in the IPTM register, including the 2018–2024 China tariff Lists 1–4 and their 2024 escalation, the 2025 China maritime/shipbuilding investigation, the 2025 Brazil investigation, and the 2026 structural-excess-capacity investigation against sixteen economies.